BT i-plate

[speedbird591]

I've just been reading in PC Advisor about a BT product called an i-plate which filters interference and can improve ADSL broadband stability and speed. BT claims that in its study of 36,000 lines it typically shows an increase of 1.5 Mbps download speeds and some lines showed improvements of up to 4 Mbps. They particularly recommend it for customers living some way from their exchange.

It is easily fitted by unscrewing the front of your master socket, clip it in and screw the cover back on top of it. And it only costs a tenner, so well worth a punt! Apparently it takes a week or so for the system to settle before seeing the final results.

I've ordered mine from here: http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Re ... uctID=7256 and there are plenty of customer reviews with a high percentage getting improvements - although no guarantees.

Ian

[Quixoticish]

I'm dubious but I've ordered one anyway to give it a go. I like 1.5km from the exchange but have a spaghetti junction totalling 7km of cable connecting me to said exchange so I'm willing to try anything to get my maximum of 24 meg connection up from 6.

[Chris Sykes]

no need for me... about 200 yards from mine and im on a good 7mb/s most of the time

[speedbird591]

Well, my i-plate arrived this morning. I checked the download speed before installing and again afterwards. There was no difference - it was 1.84 Mbps :-(

But the bit of paper said that it takes at least 3 days for BT's automatic wotsit to detect your ability to receive a faster signal. Apparently it keeps it slow to make it reliable. Anyway, cyberbrat has just come down with the news that our download speed has just increased to 3.68 Mbps and it's never been that good since all the yonks we've been here.

I'll let you know what it looks like in 3 days, but so far it looks like a very good investment.

Ian

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi,

Well, I've ordered one. Living at about the most extreme from the exchange I get a miserly 950kbps connection speed. I took the opportunity to change my product with my isp and will save a few bob each month which will pay for this little baby within a couple of months. I was on a locked 1mb connection as that was the fastest estimate for my line. The new product I am moving onto is a 'Max' connection which will adjust itself to suit the line. I have been told to turn my modem/router of regularly during the first 10 days so that the exchange hardware can learn the best connection speed for my line. I have also read that your modem should be connected directly to the master socket to get the most benefit but that would then mean a wireless connection to the PC which I don't particularly want. I'll see how it fares with the existing set-up and report back in a couple of weeks.

Regards

John

[speedbird591]

Here's an update on mine, John. It looks like a winner!

It's been fitted for 3 days now and after initially not showing any change (first 12 hrs), the download speed seems to have cranked up to around 3.5 to 3.8 Mbps maximum. This compares to a maximum of 1.85 Mbps before fitting. My ISP product is BT Internet 'up to 8Mb' but I live about 3 km from the exchange so no chance of that! Our home network is all wireless and I moved the router to the main socket when I fitted the I-plate but, as I say, there was no immediate increase so I would guess that this doesn't make much difference.

So far, then, an increase of nearly 2Mb (roughly double the speed) for a tenner. And supposedly it is more reliable and stable - not that my connection is unstable anyway. I'll let you know the final speed after a full week.

Ian

[Rick Piper]

Hi Guys

Just ordered an I-Plate

my current speed is not bad for my 8mb BT account
5819 Down
379 Up

will report the difference if any.

Regards
Rick

[Quixoticish]

Gained an extra meg today, connecting at 7 rather than 6. Hopefully it'll creep up a bit more. It's not 24 but we're on the way.

[DaveG]

Gained an extra meg for free!

Looked into this i-plate and found some info about disconnecting the ringer wire. Did that and rebooted the modem, and hey-presto gained just over a meg.

[speedbird591]

Gained an extra meg for free!

I'm not sure that's completely in the spirit of things, Dave! Where would Capitalism be if people stopped buying things just because they could do it themselves? I'll bet you wash your own car, too!

Anyway, back to the I-plate! It's now been on for a week and after the improvement of the first couple of days, there's been no further speed boost.

So the final figures for download speeds are: Before I-plate = 1.85Mbps, After I-plate = 3.70Mbps which is approximately, er ...
... DOUBLE!

Might not work for everyone, but it did for me.

Ian